


and counting

by IvyPrincess



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:40:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23536945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IvyPrincess/pseuds/IvyPrincess
Summary: In which three becomes nine, eleven, fifteen, eighteen, twenty-one, and Mark learns other ways to count.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 36
Kudos: 144





	and counting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [speckledsolanaceae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/speckledsolanaceae/gifts).



> For Anne, who reminds me that everything I write is still worth reading.

Three, and his world is small, just four cream-papered walls and the stereo now in front of him, now behind him, now to the side, as he whirls gleefully around, dancing for his parents to applaud, the carpet rubbing coarsely underneath his bare toes and legs when he eventually stumbles to a dizzy halt. It was an old, warbly tune, one he still can’t resist belting badly along to, but his family’s cheers ring through his ears long after the song ended. 

It’s the beginning of a lifelong dream, a ripple he has yet to feel, but years down the line, interviewers will ask how he knew and whatever canned response he gives, something inside of him always screams: _this_.

Nine, and he gets off at the wrong bus stop in a sun shower, young enough to be intimidated by the Chicago’s glittering vertigo downtown, old enough to have enough common sense to duck inside a nearby store, and he loses track of time quickly as soon as he puts on a pair of headphones in the music store with the vinyls in the window, only his mother’s sudden grip on his wrist that yanks him out of his paradisal headspace, wrenches him back into the bright present so far removed from the dusty shelves he had hunkered down behind.

And even as he gets scolded the entire drive home, his face is pressed up against the car window, and Peter Freudenthaler sings on in his head ( _and all that I can see is just another lemon tree_ )

Eleven, and it only steeps into his mind that he’s leaving his entire world behind him for a shot in the dark, into the abyss, when he steps into SM’s headquarters for the first time, hands tucked tightly into fists by his side to avoid just how much he wanted to hold his mother’s hand (he was all but grown, he had told her pompously, and young men didn’t need to be coddled on their trip to fame, fortune, and the stars beyond)

It will hurt again when she has to leave for good, tear-filled hugs and kisses goodbye clutched in one grubby fist, stuffed suitcase in the other, left in a starkly furnished dorm, empty but for his own thoughts. This is the end of it all, this is the beginning of it all.

Thirteen, and he wants nothing more than to hide, hide from the icy stares of his fellow trainees, hide from the weighty expectations of his instructors, hide from the critical audience he’s sold his youth to perform in front of. It stings to be complimented so loudly in front of all the other trainees, the instructor’s hand clamped on his shoulder a weight Atlas would crumple under, _hurts_ when even the friendliest hyungs turn a cold shoulder after a long practice of reprimands and unfair comparisons. _Golden boy_ , they hiss behind his back and he pretends he can’t hear, _favorite_ , when staff start introducing him to EXO and SNSD sunbaes, and he’s done everything wrong by doing nothing wrong at all. It’s nice to not be physically pushed around as much as some of the others when they stumble time and time again, but words are just as painful as fists, and Mark hates being their weapon of choice.

He doesn’t get invited out to eat often, still too timid to ask any of the older boys to chaperone him when he’s still too young to walk the streets unattended, and he’s never felt so lonely while surrounded by so many people who either can’t or won’t pay attention to him. He can’t _do_ anything but practice more, practice harder, grow more distant, and the vicious cycle continues just _please would someone be a friend—_

Fifteen, and he’s all but accustomed to sunshine loudly announcing its own presence around every corner, in the dorms, in the studio, in any practice room at all, and bitter irritation takes no time at all to sweeten between Mark and Donghyu _— Haechan_ , even if the sting of jealousy and unadulterated want never truly leaves. The younger boy ingratiates himself successfully to everyone around them, wielding a winning smile and charming empathy with an ease Mark wished he possessed, but it’s overshadowed by sheer affection, because _finally_ there’s someone _he_ can look after, someone to gift with everything he wished he had been offered, someone to go home with (because there is a home to look forward to now) and he’s gained a friend and a soulmate and a little brother all in one.

And when his notebooks start filling up a little more day by day, quickly scrawled lyrics falling into place on the page, he shrugs sheepishly at the praise he’s learned to graciously accept, subtly ignoring the teases from the PD-noona that he must have found his first love (he ignores the instinctive memory that jumps to his mind of late night whispered dreams and reaching out to stroke the constellations when he knows the other has fallen asleep).

Eighteen, and it gets better before it gets worse, because there are more responsibilities piling onto Mark’s too-skinny shoulders, and the others don’t make leading easy for him, and maybe Haechan’s the worst, or maybe it’s just _Mark_. Mark, who’s trying to be everything and anything that anyone needs, surrounded by crumpled cans of energy drinks and paper scraps he can’t keep straight, Mark who is leader and rapper and hyung and maknae all in one, Mark who spins words into gold through the recording studio but can’t stutter out what he wants to say to his best friend, because maybe a misunderstanding and a fight would be enough to keep the younger at bay, keep these feelings at bay, let a little misconstrued heartbreak hide the way they are falling apart, both of them, but not like that. They don’t have the excuse of boisterous youth this time, there aren’t any secrets between them anymore, and petty retorts turned to screaming matches in less time than it would’ve taken Mark to just say it straight, damn it Minhyung, _why won’t you talk to me—_

You’re tearing this family apart, his members tell him, jokingly at first, then with increasing concern as the scowls and missing eye contact find their way into the public eye, because Haech _— Donghyuck_ always gave as good as he got, and Mark had failed to be his anything. (Fix it, he’s told, as if it were that easy, as if this didn’t choke him from inside out, as if he could sleep without the comfort of sunlight beside him, as if he wasn’t at risk of losing his life, his love, his _world—_ )

  
  
  


Twenty-one, and the world is his. Mark rides the giddy waves, green lights in a black sea, and he thinks that maybe his younger self would approve, that child from a lifetime ago whirling dizzily for those he loves, and he can’t help his sudden urge to dash across the stage platform, galvanized by the roar of the crowd, drunk on self-acknowledged success, letting himself topple into arms that have never failed to catch him before. 

And in the end, it had been a single sentence that had stopped him from running away, just one small remark that sliced through his self-absorbed fears. “Why try to be everyone else’s,” Donghyuck had asked, unmoving but for the tremble in his voice, “when you’ve barely tried to be mine?”

Under the glaring stage lights, he takes one bow with his members, two, three, but Mark’s grip on the hand in his stays tight, because _this_ is the beginning of it all, and one plus one could be so much more than two.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/hurricane_ivy) and [cc](https://curiouscat.me/hurricane_ivy)


End file.
